Good cop/bad cop in Pakistan

Two newswire-based briefs that ran on the same
day last week in Pakistan's English language Daily Times online capture
the ambivalent, not to say schizophrenic, nature of U.S. dealings with
Pakistan. First, an AFP digest of what had been a front-page New York Times expose:

US threatens to chase Taliban into Pakistan

WASHINGTON:
The US has warned the government that its forces will chase Taliban
forces into Pakistan if Islamabad does not get tough with the
insurgents, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. Citing unnamed US
and Pakistani officials, the newspaper said the blunt message was
delivered in November when national security adviser James Jones and
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan met with the heads of
the military and intelligence. “Jones’s message was if that Pakistani
help wasn’t forthcoming, the United States would have to do it
themselves,” an unnamed official told the Times. That could mean the US
expanding drone attacks beyond the Tribal Areas and special forces
raids in Pakistan against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, the officials
said. “I think they read our intentions accurately,” a senior US
administration official said. US officials said the message was
intended to press the Pakistani military to pursue Taliban insurgents.

Next, from unidentified wire reports, the same message delivered with the exquisite tact of Robert Gates:

US to extend more help if Pakistan wants, says Gates

KABUL:
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says the United States is prepared to
give Pakistan more help fighting Al Qaeda forces if its government
wants it. Gates, who arrived in Afghanistan late on Monday, said it is
Pakistan’s “foot on the accelerator” when it comes to fighting
terrorists. But he said the US could provide more assistance “at any
pace they are prepared to accept”. While Pakistan is considered one of
the closest US allies in the war on terrorism, it is also accused of
giving anti-US forces a safe haven. The Obama administration has looked
for new ways to expand cooperation while considering widening missile
attacks on Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan. Gates also said the US was
prepared to work more closely with Pakistan as soon as the government
there showed a willingness. “The more they get attacked internally . .
. the more open they may be to additional help from us,” he said.

This is, shall we say, not a new tack for Gates. Here he is in January '08:

The
US would consider conducting joint military operations against
extremists inside Pakistan if requested by Islamabad, Robert Gates, US
defence secretary, said on Thursday.

“We
remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner
with them to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations,
should they desire to do so,” Mr Gates said....

Asked
whether he would be concerned about Pakistani public reaction to US
forces conducting military operations inside Pakistan, Mr Gates said:
“I think that they have to evaluate the reaction of public opinion in
Pakistan and how they would react to such co-operation. And I think we
would take very seriously and clearly defer to their judgment about
what works for them.”

Finally, from the same
interview, note this mirror image of the current U.S. "threat" referenced in the first brief to
conduct unilateral operations in Pakistan:

Mr Gates
stressed that the US was not considering undertaking large military
operations inside the country, saying “we’re talking about a very small
number of troops, should that happen”

As Michael Crowley noted last month in a long profile
of Gates, the former CIA director is apparently haunted by U.S. neglect
of both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the wake of the Soviet pullout in
1989 and the cutoff of all aid by both sides in 1991. Not to probe the
man's psychology, his public response to this recognition has been to
go to extraordinary lengths to view the battle with the Taliban from
the Pakistani leadership's point of view. Speaking to CNN
this past April, he refused to be drawn into a Hillary Clinton-like
condemnation of what's often viewed as Pakistani double-dealing:

Q
But you do think that the [Pakistani] leadership gets it? Because I
look at what's happened, Mr. Secretary. They have these Taliban forces,
insurgency, 60 miles from the capital, 100 miles from the capital. And
what they've done so far is move 6,000 troops from the eastern border
to the western border out of an army of about a half-million.

This
does not strike one as a full-throated response at every level that
mobilizes the nation and its defense forces. Do you think that there is
still a way to go for the Pakistani military in terms of focusing on
this threat?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think what you have
to do is look at it in some historical context. For 60 years Pakistan
has regarded India as its existential threat, as the main enemy. And
its forces are trained to deal with that threat. That's where it has
the bulk of its army and the bulk of its military capability.

And
historically, the far western part of Pakistan has generally been
ungoverned. And the Pakistani governments going back decades would do
deals with the tribes and the Pashtuns and would play the tribes
against one another, and occasionally, when necessary, use the army to
put down a serious challenge.

I think that - and
partly it's because the Punjabis so outnumber the Pashtuns that they've
always felt that if it really got serious, it was a problem they could
take care of. I think the - that's why I think the movement of the
Taliban so close to Islamabad was a real wake-up call for them.

Now,
how long it takes them to build the capabilities, the additional
military capabilities and the training that goes into counterinsurgency
and so on and to develop the civilian programs that begins to push back
in that part of the country, I think, is still a period ahead of us.

But
I would just remind that, you know, the first al Qaeda attack on the
United States was in 1993. We really didn't change much of anything we
did until after we were hit on September 11th, 2001. So al Qaeda was at
war with us for eight years, at least eight years, before we
acknowledged that we were at war with them as well. And I think a
little bit of the same denial has been going on in Pakistan. But I
think that the recent developments have certainly got their attention.

Q
Do you think they have the counterinsurgency capacity? Because at some
level armies don't like to fight these kind of wars, as you well know.
What armies like to do is have a big enemy so they can have a big
budget and never have to fight a war. And that is, in effect, what has
happened with Pakistan with India, which is they have this big enemy.
It justifies a very large budget for the Pakistani military. But they
don't actually have to fight, whereas this one, the insurgency, is one
which they have to fight. They could lose. And so they worry, I think,
that they even have the capacity. Do they have the capacity for real
counterinsurgency?

SEC. GATES: Well, I think that they
are at the beginning of the process of developing that capacity. But
again, to provide some perspective, in 2003, when we went into Iraq, or
even in 2001 and '02, when we went into Afghanistan, our Army didn't
have that capacity either. We had forgotten everything we learned about
counterinsurgency in Vietnam. And it took us several years to change
our tactics and to get ourselves into a position where we could
effectively fight a counterinsurgency.

So institutions
are slow to change even in the face of a real threat. And I think that
the Pakistanis are beginning to open up to others, to get additional
help. I certainly hope that's the case. But I don't - it's not
something where I would sort of blame the Pakistani army, because we
went through the same process ourselves as we confronted a building
insurgency in Iraq.

We had to learn all over again how
to do this, and we had to acquire the equipment to do it effectively,
completely outside the normal Pentagon bureaucracy, for the most part.
So perhaps I have a little more understanding of the challenges that
our Pakistani counterparts face than perhaps others.

"Institutions slow to change" is something of an obsession
with Gates. To apply that prism to continued Pakistani reluctance to
view all major Taliban factions as enemies bespeaks a degree of
forbearance that perhaps only an old guard Cold Warrior can get away
with.

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